How I didn't become a monk, my next graphic novel, is over. It will be published in french in february 2017 at Futuropolis. I still have the cover to make though. But I would like to take a moment to thank some people who encouraged and helped me to go through these last four years. My mentor Jean-Louis Tripp, my technical adviser Guillaume Blackburn, Jean-Luc Cornette, Marc Tessier and Sylvain Cabot. I would like to thank also the author Emmanuel Lepage for taking the time to criticize my work and for putting me on the path of improvement. And, finally, my publisher Alain David from Futuropolis for believing in this book. To be continued... As some of you know, these last four years have been challenging, as I had to take a year off due to tendonitis, rehabilitation and so on. I did some volunteering in a shelter for homeless people where I learned a bunch of things about the injustice of this world. We never know, I could have been one of those guys on the streets. But I had faith in my future, even if some people, along with health professionals, told me to change career. I have been stubborn as usual, which is something I'm quite good at.

I was so lost in my book that I had to draw a plan to know where I'm going. The pages marked with a red X are the ones that are done. The pages at the beginning of my book are the ones that need more redrawing because the drawing improved through the book.

220 pages done. Now, I have modifications to do, removing some pages, adding other ones, changing stuff, fixing mistakes in the drawings and the text. So on. I'm quite sastisfied with the end though, but I'm not showing it here.

I had to get my old diary, the book in which I wrote everything on my trip to Nepal and Tibet back in 2005 for my graphic novel or autobiographical mystical comic book called How I didn't become a monk or something like that. It's hard to find a good english translation for the title. Anyway, I couldn't find what I was looking for because I realized I didn't write down everything. So, what remains of the story is in my memories. But I found some interesting stuff for the end of the book instead in that old diary.

Many ask me : «What is the mysterious secret amazing technique called patch?» The comic artists Regis Loisel and Jean-Louis Tripp taught me this mythical technique, when you want to change something in a comic book page, but you don't want to remake the whole page.

The idea behind changing things in my book is to bring the quality of the first pages to the same level than the quality of the last pages. After more than 175 pages, I became better and I now see a difference between the beginning and the end of the book. So, I called my magician friend Guillaume Blackburn, who is the artistic director of Studio Pascal Blais. This specialist in the art of mystification conceived a tool for me, which is anything less than the exact reproduction of my drawing pen with the computer. So I can save a lot of time by reworking on my pages with the computer.

Since I suffered from tendinitis, I tried to find a way to draw without problems. This is where I invented a comic book drawing technic of mine, which I called The dirty rebel artist technic. This technic consists of drawing a page without taking care of academics or the original art. Many well known comic book artists influenced me to do so, like Bastien Vives, Cyril Pedrosa, Christophe
Gaultier, Manu Larcenet, Vincent Perriot, Gipi, Jimmy Beaulieu... I treat my original art like if it was cheap paper. My old teachers Regis Loisel and Jean-Louis Tripp told me to have pleasure while working or I'm gonna end up having a depression or burn out. So I went to study how other comic book artists work. I think the ones who influenced me the most are Cyril Pedrosa and Manu Larcenet when they said this : Cyril Pedrosa : «During a long time, I thought I had to be a good student. I took the place of the good boy who doesn't cause any trouble. Now, I decided to draw more directly with pen and watercolors, tools that can't allow me to go back to fix mistakes.» Manu Larcenet : «I never draw with «noble tools». Nor on good paper. I use everything that can trace a line. Broken brushes, used pens and so on.»

I just finished the second part of my book. Now remains the third and last part, which is something like 50 pages. I'm starting to feel really tired, but I can't wait to draw the last part. When I will be done, I'm gonna have to do corrections and change some stuff, some pages and panels.